The plan Iowa has developed to salvage its insurance market — the Iowa Stopgap Measure — suffers three major flaws.
- Although the Iowa Stopgap Measure helps upper middle class Iowans afford health insurance, it illegally deprives poorer Iowans of the ability to make use of health insurance.
- The Iowa Stopgap Measure creates effective marginal tax rates of more than 100% on many individuals, particularly those over 50, and excessive effective marginal tax on many others.
- Unless there’s more to its fuzzy math than it has heretofore presented, the Iowa plan costs the federal government a good deal of money.
Don’t add rejection of the Iowa waiver to the list of acts of sabotage of the ACA by the Trump administration. This is an instance where the President has faithfully executed the law. And if that law is not working or if the waiver criteria are too strict, it is to Congress that complaint should be made.
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